From SETI...

[Roxanne Appleby]

The real problem is that it might not be a joke.

The story I presented is not something I culled from an "I was abducted by aliens" magazine. It is for real.

No joke at all if you are the entree'!

 

[Zeb_Carter]

D'oh!

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Some years back there was a government project set up to broadcast to the universe at large that:
1) There is intelligent life on Earth. [As previously noted this may be a fraud.]
2) Talk to us.

The idiots who set up the project were congratulaing themselves on "One giant step for mankind." Then, some people with scientific training found out about the project. The scientifically trained people then made projections based upon the number of civilizations that might receive our transmissons, the reception they might give us and possible outcomes.

There were several civilizations that might receive our message. Some of the civilizations who received our message would want to destroy/enslave us. Some of the civilizations who received our message and would want to destroy/enslave us would have the capability to do so.

The project was shut down. There have been at least two subsequent classified government projects with the same name, but not the same aim.

The conclusions:
1) Learn to recognize fire.
2) Don't play with fire.
3) "We come in peace." may be translated by an alien civilization as "Enslave us"

We've already been broadcasting to the universe that there's intelligent life on earth ever since Marconi hit the key on his first wireless. All of our TV and radio broadcasts go out into space and are detetctable by anyone listening for them on the right frequency. That's how SETI works. We're listening for thier broadcasts too.

The idea that beings who have the technology to travel light years through space would want to come here and gather human "slaves" to serve in their Kryptonite mines or engage in a little slavering tentacle porn is a little far-fetched, wouldn't you say? Maybe they just want our cool automobiles and Steven Segal movies?

 

[Guest]

We've already been broadcasting to the universe that there's intelligent life on earth ever since Marconi hit the key on his first wireless. All of our TV and radio broadcasts go out into space and are detetctable by anyone listening for them on the right frequency. That's how SETI works. We're listening for thier broadcasts too.

The idea that beings who have the technology to travel light years through space would want to come here and gather human "slaves" to serve in their Kryptonite mines or engage in a little slavering tentacle porn is a little far-fetched, wouldn't you say? Maybe they just want our cool automobiles?

Oooh.

There's probably quite a market for human versus alien slavering tentacle porn. Maybe we'd better start being more careful at Lit.



(What are you doing up so late??)

 

[rgraham666]

Most unsettling alien invasion story I ever read; The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon.

Aliens didn't bother to invade. They just introduced something into the atmosphere that turned every man on the planet into a sexual predator a la Ted Bundy.

Brrr.

 

[Samandiriel]

Is SETI Barking up the Wrong Tree?

It's been 46 years since Frank Drake aimed an antenna at the stars in the first modern SETI experiment. His hope was to hear a deliberate signal - guided into space by intelligent beings - rather than the natural, noisy dance of hot electrons.


Since then, SETI has expanded its search space, bettered its equipment, and refined its strategies. But the bottom line hasn't budged: still no confirmed chitter from the cosmos.


Some people mistakenly confuse a long search with a thorough one, and figure that the lack of a SETI detection indicates that we're alone in the Galaxy. This, however, is nonsense.


The number of star systems we've carefully examined is only about a thousand. That's a trifling sample compared with the several hundred billion suns that stud the Milky Way, and of little statistical significance. It's comparable to initiating a quest for Americans who play the oboe, but considering the search meaningful after interrogating only two people. In addition, and of great consequence to those who actually do SETI, the speed of the experiments is growing geometrically. Every two years, the breadth of the search approximately doubles.


In my opinion, the reason that SETI hasn't yet succeeded is simple: we've just begun to look. Nonetheless, every day I get e-mails from folks who suggest other reasons for our failure to pick up an alien thrum. It probably doesn't surprise you, but many of these proffered explanations are similar. Indeed, there are four conjectures that are so popular, so prevalent in e-mail after e-mail, that I list them below for your edification and assessment. I also append my own take on each.


Top four reasons people suggest for why SETI hasn't found a signal


1. "You're counting on the aliens using communication technology (radio, light) that's oh-so-last century. They will be far beyond this."


In other words, SETI's technical approach is wrong. Variations on this theme are to suggest that we should instead be looking for gamma rays (more bits per second), gravity waves (unclear benefit, except that some people think they move faster than light), or taking advantage of what is somberly and imposingly described as "hyperdimensional physics."


Well, gamma rays are wasteful, requiring an enormous amount of energy per bit. Gravity waves are hard to produce (you need to shake planets or something similar) and hard to detect (consider the complexity of LIGO or any of the other gravity wave experiments). In addition, and as far as we know, gravity waves move no faster than the speed of light.


As for invoking hyperdimensional physics - well that might be dandy if we knew what it was.


True enough, there may be some important, undiscovered laws of the universe that will show us how to send bits from one place to another either more cheaply than light and radio, or faster (and no... quantum entanglement doesn't seem to do it). If and when we discover these new laws, we'll adjust our experiment accordingly. In the meantime I can only point out that, without the physics, it's hard to wire up the equipment!


2. "If hi-tech societies or thinking machines were out there, they'd have colonized the Galaxy by now. Clearly, we're alone... lone... lone."


This is, of course, an appeal to the Fermi Paradox, which assumes that if sophisticated societies are common, they should also be ubiquitous. Well, I just checked the parking lot outside the Institute, and I see no large animals with long, prehensile noses. The conclusion a la Fermi is that elephants don't exist on this Earth, right? After all, any putative pachyderms have had plenty of time to get to my office, even if only a few of them are so inclined.


To use the Fermi Paradox as a reason for the lack of a SETI signal is to make a very big extrapolation from a very local observation. Seems chancy to me.


3. "The aliens don't want to communicate with us. Look at what we're doing to the planet!"


Even aside from the fact that our television signals haven't yet oozed far enough into space to tip off any aliens about our proclivities for deadly conflict, our enthusiasm for environmental degradation, or our addiction to sports, it's self-centered in the extreme to think that any of this would matter to them! Did E.O. Wilson refuse to study ants because they routinely war with other ants?


4. "You SETI types are just looking in the wrong places. We know where the extraterrestrials are: on a planet in the Zeta Reticuli system."

I like this explanation the best, even though it's the worst. At least it offers a recipe for remedy: simply turn our antennas at the nearby (39 light-years) double-star Zeta Reticuli, and the signals will thunder in. (For those readers who are scratching their crania at this, I note that Zeta Reticuli is the star system that was the supposed origin of the short, brazen aliens who, in 1961, reportedly abducted social worker Betty Hill and her postal worker husband, Barney. The system's identification is based on a "star map" Betty drew with a dozen points on it.) But allow me to note that we did look at both of Z. Reticuli's stellar components during our SETI observing run in Australia, a decade ago. The aliens, for their part, remained coy.

There's one thing you can definitely say about SETI: there's no dearth of ideas on how to do the experiment better. I offer this listing to alert readers to the fact that not all ideas are new.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

There's a another factor that Drake neglected to include in his equation, and that was an estimate of how long a technology would persist in the wasteful pactice of broadcasting rather than using line-based mass communication.

Judging from the human experience, it's taken about 100 years to go from broadcasting where we just fling our signals into space, to cable TV and radio, which is cheaper and more efficient. SETI can't detect cable signals, so if there are aliens watching alien cable TV, we'd never know it.

But I bet we could tell by the sudden spike in David Hasselhoff's career. ALiens love David Hasselhoff.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

(What are you doing up so late??)

I have an appointment with the Mother Ship. They want to get their slimy tentacles on Miss Universe.

 

[Rhys]

Is there any intelligent life out here?

The complete lack of common sense should be indicative of the collective intelligence level of most of the world.

Aliens would take one look at this planet and back away slowly.

 

[NoJo]

I've always considered having a sense of humour to be a defining trait of intelligent life. But humour a is notoriously poor traveller, so it's perfectly possible that one of the reasons we've never been contacted, is that they're waiting for us to show that we can at least chuckle at the wit of the Horsehead Nebula, which cracks up every other sentient race, except for the Sprith worms of Acrux III, who understanderbly find it offensive.

http://users.pandora.be/hambsch/karel/best_of_KT/pages/Horsehead nebula HaRGB.htm

 

[rgraham666]

I've always considered having a sense of humour to be a defining trait of intelligent life. But humour a is notoriously poor traveller, so it's perfectly possible that one of the reasons we've never been contacted, is that they're waiting for us to show that we can at least chuckle at the wit of the Horsehead Nebula, which cracks up every other sentient race, except for the Sprith worms of Acrux III, who understanderbly find it offensive.

http://users.pandora.be/hambsch/karel/best_of_KT/pages/Horsehead nebula HaRGB.htm

I've often considered that aliens don't contact us is they're afraid we'll stop being funny if they do.

As we provide hours and hours of prime time comedy to them.

Typical conversation around the methane cooler.

Alien 1: Did you watch the humans last night?

Alien 2: Yes! It was hilarious! You have to wonder how a species that dense survived discovering fire.

 

[Guest]

I have an appointment with the Mother Ship. They want to get their slimy tentacles on Miss Universe.

That whore?

You'd think they want someone more worthy, like Marilyn Chambers.